Spring has sort of sprung, and as we only have oil seed rape in the spring portfolio it’s a bit of a damp squib …

It has long been clear SOSR plantings will be well down on last year, and actually, well down on a ‘normal’ (whatever that is) spring season – there’s still a month to go though so we’ll see. At least the sun is shining and it looks like a good (long) weekend ahead. The threat of a bank holiday usually stirs up a few ‘must have it by Thursday’ orders – usually on Wednesday at about 3.30 … Still, we do our best!

The winter crop has had a bit of a stop start spring – the good weather at the beginning of March pushed it into stem extension, then it was mostly dry and a bit chilly – but it’s all guns (or flowers) blazing now. Light leaf spot has raised its ugly head – we are seeing it in the deep south now, in areas it’s not been seen before, and it is very damaging if left unchecked (and can be very difficult to control even with a full fungicide campaign). Most of the earliness of flowering differences have now disappeared, and while the earliest varieties are putting on pod, the warm weather will bring out the insects that do the bulk of the pollination

Crops are looking very big already, unsurprisingly, what with the very mild winter and the ‘adequate’ supplies of ground water. Given the right conditions, and even with PGR’s that most have now applied, some varieties are going to be massive. We had some interesting information from a combine manufacturer the other day – ‘efficiency savings from growing a semi dwarf (like Troy) can be between 9% and 38%’ that’s fuel, labour costs etc etc

Crops generally have shallow roots – they haven’t had to work hard to get moisture – with a bit of rain, this could be another lodging year, which brings big problems, both to management and yield. Of course, without rain (and the forecast looks dry for a while, at least) we may actually have drought problems, incredible after the winter we’ve had.

Anyway, the sun is shining, although it’s not really warm enough – and I need to get some miles in my legs, so off on the bike I go – a little light ‘crop inspecting’ !!